Iran Overview
The past 12 months have seen a continued deterioration in the human rights situation in Iran. There have been repeated serious violations of freedom of expression and association.
Officials who were implicated in internal repression in the1980s and 1990s have been appointed as government ministers. While sporadic efforts have been made by some authorities in Iran to improve the administration of justice, we continue to be concerned at the lack of effective action to reform laws, institutions and official practices.
The future does not look positive. There appears to be a real reluctance on the part of the Iranian government to undertake the necessary human rights reforms. Talk of respect for human rights needs to be matched by a demonstrable commitment to improving the human rights situation.
Recent developments : Mahmood Ahmadinejad was elected president in June 2005.
It is hard to reconcile claims that the Iranian electoral system is fully democratic with the exclusion of the vast majority of the candidates from the presidential elections. The unelected committee of clerics and jurists that makes up the Guardian Council prevented all female candidates and many reformists from standing for the presidency. Election-vetting procedures dissuaded many from even putting their names forward. We noted comments made by Iran’s former Interior Minister about the unsatisfactory conduct of the elections. We believe that if the Iranian people are to have a free choice about their country’s future, they should be able to vote for candidates who hold the full range of political views.
Current concerns : Death penalty
According to international NGOs, Iran was second only to China in terms of the total number of executions carried out in 2005. Amnesty International estimates that at least 94 people were executed. Iran does not issue official figures and reliable data is hard to come by. However, the early part of 2006 has seen an alarming increase in the number of reported executions compared to the same period in 2005. In particular, we object to the Iranian authorities’ failure to respect even the most basic of minimum standards regarding the application of capital punishment. Many death sentences are carried out in public. We have doubts as to whether all death sentences are the result of a fair trial and whether everyone who is sentenced to death in Iran is able to exhaust all avenues of appeal available to them. The hanging of two youths aged 17 and 20 in Khorrambad (Lorestan province) on 13 May 2006 occurred barely a month after their alleged crime.
According to leading international human rights organizations, Iran was the only country to continue to execute children and juvenile offenders in 2005.
The number of reported death sentences and executions of juvenile offenders in 2005 appears to have increased over preceding years. Reports suggest at least five youths were executed for crimes theycommitted while under the age of 18. This is contrary to Iran’s international commitments under the ICCPR and the CRC. The executions also run contrary to assurances that Iran has given the international community that a moratorium is in place on capital punishments against minors, including its declaration to the UN Committee on theRights of the Child in January 2005.
Our concerns about criminal punishment in Iran are not limited to the death penalty. Draconian punishments, such as floggings, stonings and amputations, remain on the statute books. It is unclear how frequently such sentences are carried out. We have received numerous reports of prisoners being subjected to prolonged solitary confinement or denied medical care.
Judicial system Officials in the Iranian judiciary have recognised that elements of the judicial system are in need of urgent reformand have admitted that torture still occurs in the course ofcriminal investigations.
The period of this report was marked by a continued failure to hold certain court hearings in public or to respect the principle of due process. The case of Abdolfattah Soltani, a lawyer defending prominent journalist Female Christians pray in a ceremony at the Qara Kelisa (BlackChurch) in Chaldran, 500miles north west ofTehran, 29 July 2006. Iran’s respect for religious minorities has continued to deteriorate.
Akbar Ganji, suggests that the Iranian authorities are seeking to intimidate lawyers who defend political activists and human rights defenders by detaining the lawyers themselves.
Mr Soltani was arrested in July 2005, held in solitary confinement and denied access to legal counsel. After being released on bail set at 1,000 million rials (ã60,000), he was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in July 2006 for disclosing restricted documents, plus a further year for propagating against the regime, and deprived of all social rights for five years. He is appealing against the sentence.
Other lawyers have been told they will be disbarred if they take on prominent human rights cases. Akbar Ganji himself was released in March 2006 after over five years’ detention for highlighting the role of government officials in serial murders in the 1990s.
Freedom of expression
Freedom of expression in Iran has deteriorated significantly in the last 12 months. The government has targeted the whole range of actors from the state media and NGOs tostudents, internet users and trade unionists. Iran is one of the few countries in the world that still maintains a state monopoly over TV and radio under article 44 of the constitution.
This serves to censor the reporting and views to which the Iranian people are exposed. BBC Persian Service staff are not allowed to report from Iran. In December 2005,the launch of Iran’s first privately owned TV channel, Saba, was blocked. It is illegal to own a satellite dish. Police can and do enter private properties to confiscate dishes and fine owners. There were also widespread reports that the government had issued orders to Iran’s news agencies to restrict the coverage of politically sensitive stories, such as the detention of political prisoners.
The internet is not immune from government censorship.
The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology has announced plans to create a “national internet”, which would further limit communication between Iran and the outside world and facilitate government control. The Iranian regime continues to prevent access to a range of websites. In January 2006, the Iranian authorities blocked the BBC Persian.com website without any official explanation.
The authorities seek to control the Farsi content of the internet by making an example of certain individuals. WebloggersArash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad, both of whom have been charged with acting against the state, have now each been detained for over 18 months for expressing their views peacefull.
In 2005, Reporters Without Borders described Iran as “the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East”. The authorities have continued to intimidate and pressurise journalists. In August 2006, the Press Supervisory Board gave the reformist newspaper Shargh one month to replace its current managing director, Mehdi Rahmanian. The official state newspaper Iran was closed in May 2006. In January 2006, 19-year old Elham Afroutan was arrested on charges of insulting officials following the publication of an article in the weekly paper Tamadon Hormozgan. She was released on bail in June, but is reportedly still facing charges before the Revolutionary Court of insulting the Supreme Leader, officials and institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran and of spreading “propaganda against the system”.
Ejlal Qavami, a journalist at the banned weekly newspaper Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdistan, was arrested for the second time in August 2005 and charged with acting against national security after demonstrations in Kurdistan province.
AkbarMohammadi, who participated in student protests in 1999, died in prison in July 2006. He had reportedly been deniedaccess to his lawyer and family and had started a hungerstrike after being denied proper medical treatment. Reports also indicated that Mr Mohammadi’s body had suffered injuries consistent with torture.
The authorities have also intensified efforts to limit academic freedom. In March, the Ministry of Education issued a circular forbidding academics to have contact with foreign embassies. In April, the authorities arrested prominentIranian-Canadian scholar Ramin Jahanbeglou. We are concerned that Mr Jahanbeglou is being penalised for his contact with foreign embassies, universities and cultural institutes. He has still not been charged with any offence.
Trades unions
The labour movement continued to suffer set backs at the hands of the authorities, despite Iran’s commitments to the ICESCR, which enshrines the right to form trades unions.
Hundreds of Tehran bus drivers were arrested for taking part in a series of strikes in january 2006. The wives of some protesters were also arrested and several houses searched.
The head of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, Mansour Ossanlu, was held in custody for over seven months without trial. He was released on bail of 1,500 million rials (ã85,000) in August 2006. Strikes are not permitted in Iran and small companies employing fewer than 10 people do not have to respect labour legislation. This affects some 3 million workers.
Minorities
The past 12 months have also been marked by a deterioration in respect for religious and ethnic minorities, who continue to suffer widespread discrimination. According to article 13 of the constitution, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are the only recognised religious minorities.
Last year we reported the case of lay Christian pastor, Hamid Pourmand. Mr Pourmand, a former army colonel, had been charged with deceiving the Iranian armed forces about his religion and with apostasy, which carries the death sentence. He was acquitted of the apostasy charges in May 2005 but was returned to jail to serve out a three-year sentence for the other charge.
The plight of the Iranian Baha’i population has worsened in the last year. The Baha’i minority is not recognised under the constitution. In March 2006, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief expressed her concern at reports suggesting that Iran’s supreme leader had instructed the Iranian authorities and armed forces to identify Baha’is and monitor their activities. Such reports are deeply disturbing. Baha’is have had property confiscated by the authorities or destroyed and the requirement for Iranians to identify their religion on official documents has prevented many Baha’i from accessing higher education, employment or adequate housing.
Women’s rights Women in Iran also suffer from widespread discrimination, despite having some limited rights and freedoms which women lack elsewhere in the region. The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women visited Iran in early2005. She reported that, while some positive steps have been taken to elevate women’s status in recent years, there are still “gaps in guaranteeing gender equality”. A woman’s testimony in court is worth half that of a man, making it difficult to secure convictions for domestic violence and rape. Arbitrary arrests and violence by security forces marred International Women’s Day celebrations in Tehran in March 2006 and a protest by Iranian women in Tehran in June 2006.
Same-sex relations are illegal in Iran and can carry the death penalty. Since our last report there has been concern from NGOs that people who had consenting same-sex relations had been charged with crimes, such as rape and kidnap, and then executed. We continue to monitor the situation verycarefully. However, we are not aware of any individual in Iran being executed solely for engaging in consenting same-sexrelations in recent years.
Engagement with UN bodies
Despite extending an open invitation to all human rights thematic monitoring mechanisms in 2002, Iran has since said it will invite special rapporteurs to visit “according to Iran’s priorities and abilities”. Last year, we reported that the Iranian government had cancelled a visit by the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances and that the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief was awaiting a reply to her request to visit. Neither visit has taken place in the past year. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing visited Iran in July 2005. We welcome the pledge that the Iranian government gave in support of its candidacy for the UNHRC to review its reservation on theCRC. At present Iran has reserved the right not to apply parts of the convention that it regards as incompatible with Islamic law. We do not recognise this reservation as it contravenes the spirit of the convention. We hope that Iran will renew its pledge and look forward to the outcome of this review.
UK action
The human rights outlook in Iran is deeply worrying. The international community clearly has a duty to respond, and human rights remain a central part of our policy approach towards Iran. We and the EU have consistently said that our relations with Iran depend on the steps it takes to address its poor human rights record.
We are disappointed that Iran has refused to hold the EU-Iran Human Rights Dialogue since June 2004, despite repeated attempts to agree revised rules of procedure aimed at making the dialogue more effective.
In light of the deteriorating situation, we have increased our activity in other areas. We used our presidency to lead the EU in finding other ways of expressing our human rights concerns, for example, by stepping up private representations to the Iranian government over human rights violations and drawing public attention to cases of concern. We have also supported debate in UN fora and the work of UN mechanisms. In the last six months of 2005, we raised our human rights concerns with the Iranian government on no fewer than 16 occasions. We led the EU in issuing fivestatements addressing various violation.
In December 2005, during the UK’s presidency, the EU co-sponsored a resolution at the UN General Assembly on Iran’s human rights record. The resolution highlighted international concern over many of the issues already mentioned. We have continued to propose and support EU actions since then.